Stevenson’s army, February 3

In class on Monday we talked about non-papers, the documents used in interagency meetings and international diplomacy to allow ideas to be offered as suggestions rather than demands or promises.  They are useful because they don’t create a paper trail of concessions if the end result is a compromise. [Congress has a similar approach, saying “nothing is agreed until everything is agreed.”]

Now we have an actual example. The US response to Russia’s demands on Ukraine was in the form of a non-paper. A Spanish newspaper got a copy and has the story and a downloadable copy here.  BEWARE: if you have a security clearance, you are not supposed to access or copy a classified document [Confidential in this case] on an unclassified device.

In other news…

– US special forces conducted a raid in Syria overnight. Biden says it killed a terrorist leader.

– NYT’s David Sanger suggests US may be pushing Putin too far over Ukraine.

– SFRC ranking member Risch is releasing a report critical of the US witrhdrawal from Afghanistan, due to be posted on his SFRC website.

Today is the day Austin & Blinken will be giving classified briefings to House & Senate on Ukraine. Watch for comments/leaks afterward.

My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).